Real Heroes
by Citizen-of-Pompeii
Summary: One-Shot. Wyatt reads Lucy's letter after the Alamo and reflects on the mission. Wyatt realizes some things about the team and himself. It's all thanks to the real hero, Lucy Preston, who got Wyatt out of the Alamo.


**Hi! So I am absolutely in love with Timeless and hope that they get a second season because they deserve it. I decided to create a little one-shot from Wyatt's point of view. After the Alamo he looks up the letter from the Alamo and reads it. This is his thoughts as he does. I love Lucy and Wyatt together, but any mentions of them are merely friendship although I do plan on writing a Lucy/Wyatt fanfic. Anyone who is reading this and also reads my OUAT fanfic, I am so sorry! My life is chaotic but I admit I have not been spending as much time writing as I could have. This idea just popped into my head. This one-shot actually just kind of wandered off without me. I will try to work on my OUAt fanfic. Thanks to anyone reading this, I love you all! Also, some notes: Lucy's letter is in italics and any dialogue from the flashback of the mission is also italicized. Sorry if it seems choppy and badly transitioned. I do not have a beta either so the grammar is probably screwed up in some places. I would love any feedback you guys have, enjoy!**

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 _When I was young, I'd read stories about great heroes doing great deeds. The truth is, real heroes don't look at all like I pictured. They're far from perfect. Bull-headed, stubborn, and reckless—and also recklessly brave. They charge in without a thought to themselves. Not without fear or doubt, but in spite of it. We are all scared, but we are going to fight and die anyway to give everyone else a chance at a better future, because the future matters._

 _Victory or Death_

 _The men and women of the Alamo._

Wyatt stares at the letter on the computer screen, at Lucy's words.

 _"I mean, the fact that we even know that—" Mason started to say before Rufus finished the sentence for him._

 _"Means your letter got out."_

 _"That must have been one hell of a letter," Wyatt said after Rufus._

 _"I'll say," agreed Rufus. The air around them was thick and heavy, each person remembering all the men that were lost._

This was the letter that inspired Texas, his home state, to rise up and defeat Santa Anna. Wyatt has no idea what the original letter by Travis looked like. Flynn wiped it from history when he killed Travis before he got the chance to write the letter.

It starts going through his head and suddenly Wyatt is taken back there, talking to Bowie, telling him about Syria. For him, the Alamo was Syria. It was happening all over again. He'd leave and everyone else would be left to die. At least he knew that this time he wouldn't be given a medal for it. He hadn't wanted to leave this time. He couldn't do it. He knew everyone died, but he knew that he should already be dead too. Maybe this was how he could make up for it. This was how he could fix it. He didn't stay in Syria. He had abandoned them. Not this time. This time he would fight the losing battle, the one without hope. After all, who was waiting for him back at home? Not Jessica, not anyone. He would buy Lucy and Rufus the time to get the women and children out, he would buy Lucy and Rufus the time to get home. Rufus had his family to get back to, Jiya too. Lucy had her mother and she still needed to find a way to bring her sister back. They would be the ones to get out, not him.

Then _she_ came. She charged into the line of fire to fetch him. He told her he wasn't staying and he remembered seeing the surprise on her face. And then she was pleading with him to escape with her. _"I don't want anybody else! I trust you, you're the one that I trust. Rufus needs you, I need you. Okay?"_ Her hands were on this face, forcing him to look into her brown eyes. Desperate, scared—and determined. She didn't know if he was going to come with her, but her eyes said she would do whatever she could to convince him. Her eyes let him know that every word she said to him was true. Rufus needed him. She needed him. These men needed him. He needed to stay. His eyes had lifted from hers. Gunshots, dust, young John, Bowie, Crocket. How could he leave these people? His face turned back to hers. Her face was twisted with worry and desperation. How could he leave her when she needed him? _"Get ready to run," he'd told her._

Looking at her words, he wonders if overhearing his story about Syria had anything to do with what she wrote. Wyatt doesn't consider himself a hero, he's the furthest thing from it. He's the coward who ran while all those soldiers, all his friends, died making sure that he could get out. Maybe it was the men he left behind that she was writing about. They were the real heroes after all.

He remembers Lucy freaking out about not being able to remember the letter, only a few words here and there _._ He'd told her to write from her heart, to stop pretending. He was so frustrated he'd yelled at her. He didn't regret it, he's sure that she needed the push. The letter isn't long. It's short and simple. It's powerful. He wonders if she thinks of herself as a hero. She's a historian who has no clue how to defend herself. He reflects on their first mission and the chaos of the Hindenburg. Seeing Lucy in Flynn's clutches. Flynn's arm around her neck and his gun pointed right at him. Then in Germany, being captured by the Nazis with no way out. She had no idea Wyatt would get there in time to save her and Fleming. In Germany, she told him about almost drowning in her car, how it felt like that every time she got back into the time machine. But she did it. She did it in order to preserve history as much as possible. To try to save people from Flynn, to try and stop more people from getting erased like her sister. Every time they go into the machine, they don't know if they'll make it back to their time. She does it anyway.

The more Wyatt thinks about it, the clearer it becomes. It was funny in a way; here Lucy was, writing about heroes, writing about herself and probably not even realizing it. He thought about how right when they got back, she stood up to Agent Christopher, telling her that she wouldn't do it without him. Rufus joined in too. They really were his team. They had his back. He was glad in the end that he came with Lucy. Not everyone he cared about was gone, and he still had his job: take out Flynn. He still knows that if he could go back to Syria and change it, he would. But today, he's glad to be alive. It's the first day he's felt this way since Jessica's death. He prays to whomever might be listening that it also isn't the last.

Looking back at the letter at the computer screen, at her handwriting, at her words, he's filled with hope that it isn't. She and Rufus may need him, but he also realizes that he needs both of them too.

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 **What do you guys think? I would love any feedback you guys have. Also, I would love to hear any ideas you guys might have for a Lucy/Wyatt fanfic. Thanks for reading! Happy New Year! Happy 2017!**


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